Reimagining Skewl
The Department of Entropy
With the threat to dismantle the Department of Edumication, I wanted to take a look at schooling and piggyback on yesterday’s post on STEAM. Some of us grew up with Schoolhouse Rock and Sesame Street. Mom taught first grade for over two decades and was never a fan of Sesame Street, it grated against her grammar-Nazi schoolteacher programming.
School, public education, has existed for five centuries and, in its infancy, it was socially class-based. Children were taught primarily by clergymen and males and only the wealthy classes received an education. The pipeline of students was to preserve the pedigree for the wealthy families to ensure they maintained status in the community.
The original model for schooling is based on an agrarian society where people lived and died by the season of crops. You planted in Spring; crops grew in the Summer…and Fall brings the harvest. Education has followed this model for centuries.
In the United States, school began formally educating students from the time the colonies formed into the early 1800s. “Normal Schools” were developed to train teachers. The first ‘public schools’ were opened in the 17th century and, a century later in 1744, the first taxpayer-funded school in Massachusetts. As the article points out: “Americans were the most literate people in the world.” —John Adams
The post-industrial world changed the types of learning and opened education to the masses, but it has remained frozen in the agrarian model to this day.
A student test, for example, starts at 100, and every wrong answer is subtracted from the score. A 90 percent or higher would get you an A. 80-90 percent a B etc. With each measure of 10 points taking the student down another alpha grade.
Numerous education Acts have passed in the country. Various federal acts were passed throughout the 20th century for education and school meals. Lyndon Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965. In 1979, Jimmy Carter signed the current United States Department of Education into law. In 2001, George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act. NCLB was based on “standardized testing” which amounted to ‘teaching to test.’ Rather than an expansive approach to knowledge, students are forced into buckets of information that would ensure they perform well on a “test.”
Again, starting from 100 and counting wrong answers against the perfect score.
Agrarian. Plant the data, give the data sunlight and water, harvest the data. If you think like a farmer, you might do well in such a learning environment. Some people are not hard-wired to think incrementally. Some of us have more hunter DNA than gatherer DNA. So, a child that is labeled as “ADD/ADHD” may have trouble learning in the agrarian fashion. This method of teaching also limits the student’s ability to solve problems and be creative in their approach to any subject.
Current education pits student against student and grades on that “Curve.” Wayne Dyer once said: “If you and I leave for New York, and you get to New York before I do. Do I ‘fail’ New York?”
As I wrote about yesterday: “The U.S. ranks 16th out of 81 countries in science. The United States is not in the top ten countries globally for education. On math, the U.S. has the most mathematicians, but ranks 33rd, below Malta.”
If you have more “Hunter DNA,” you are checking the wind for scents, looking at the ground for tracks, listening for sounds, checking your sight lines. You might not finish a standardized test ‘on time,’ and you would NOT have used your natural abilities getting there.
The Full Montessori
“The Montessori Method fosters rigorous, self-motivated growth for children and adolescents in all areas of their development—cognitive, emotional, social, and physical.” –American Montessori Society
Montessori is based on a child learning ‘at their own pace.’ It also encourages somewhat more creative thinking. Montessori does not train a child to achieve a grade. Montessori is better geared to those of us with more Hunter DNA. On average, Montessori tends to produce children with higher aptitudes in math and science as well as language arts.
While the academic and creative parallels are incremental for Montessori, it does tend to output more emotionally literate (people with higher EQ) students…as opposed to student robots that can score high on a test.
“The take-home message: Despite the limitations of the research, Montessori education—as it is implemented in the real world—has positive impacts on both academics and social and emotional skills.” –Evidence Based Living
Gamifying Education
The smartest overhaul to the current education system is based on the idea of gamifying the learning process. In a game, we start at zero and each achievement builds on itself, taking us to higher “levels” in the game. Most kids have grown up with games on computers or tablets, so they are familiar with the idea of building on accomplishments.
There is nothing new to gamification for education, other than opening minds to including more and more of it in curriculums.
“By incorporating game elements into lessons, educators can create immersive and interactive experiences that captivate learners’ attention and foster deeper understanding. Gamified learning platforms leverage principles of gamification, such as intrinsic motivation, progress tracking, and immediate feedback.” -- Educationise
The referenced website above lists what they call eight ‘platforms’ for gamifying education. Some of these are popular with parents today, in the same way that kids still watch Sesame Street.
What makes gamification essential to learning are several key factors, the main key is a reward. Think again of the process. When you start at 100 and “lose” points for every wrong answer, your reward is losing. This is a de-motivation. Yes, in games, you can lose rewards in levels if you fail to reach an objective, but the goal is to be motivated to gain as many rewards as possible as typically you will reach a “boss” level where you need as many points/rewards as possible.
Turning education from the agrarian model to a gamification model would serve today’s students and teach them more about motivation and achieving goals. While you are competing with other students, it is still based on your own prowess and expertise. If your “high score” is greater than the other students, they don’t “fail” the assignment…they just have a lower ranking.
“Gamification in education connects to the use of game-like elements, like earning points, achieving levels, and competing with others in a virtual learning setting. The reason many teachers are using gamification is to make the learning more interactive and enjoyable, which can encourage students to engage more deeply with the material.” –Educational Technology
Most studies around the gamification of learning have shown that students are more motivated to learn, they retain material at a higher level, and they have immediate feedback. You are not filling in circles on a sheet of paper, testing how well you retained information and waiting to get a result. You are actively participating in the quest for knowledge and retaining more information because each level may require more and more combined/accumulated data.
As The University of Chicago points out, gamification is not just for elementary schools. Quests and rewards and can create a true sense of community as ‘players’ work together, as well as against each other, to achieve goals.
If the current tech oligarchs taking over the United States want to improve education in America, they should look toward providing schools with the technology to compete in gamification and broadening the reach of STEAM schools throughout the country and make us once again, as John Adams said: “Americans were the most literate people in the world.” (not just the wealthy ones)